How they stole the bomb
Uri Avnery

IT was like an atom bomb falling on Israel. The earth shook. Our political and military leaders were all in shock. The headlines screamed with rage. What happened? A real catastrophe: the American intelligence community, comprising 16 different agencies, reached a unanimous verdict: already in 2003, the Iranians terminated their efforts to produce a nuclear bomb, and they have not resumed them since. Even if they change their mind in the future, they will need at least five years to achieve their aim. Shouldn’t we be overjoyed? Shouldn’t the masses in Israel be dancing in the streets, as they did on Nov. 29, 1947, 60 years ago? After all, we have been saved! Until this week, we have been regularly hearing that — any minute now — the Iranians will produce a bomb that threatens our very existence. Nothing less.
A small nuclear bomb, even a teeny-weeny one like the ones dropped on Japan, would be enough to wipe out the whole Zionist enterprise. If it fell on Tel-Aviv’s Rabin Square, the economic, cultural and military center of Israel would be vaporized, together with hundreds of thousands of Jews. A second Holocaust. And lo and behold — no bomb and no any-minute-now. Ahmadinejad can threaten us as much as he wants — he just has not got the means to harm us. Isn’t that a reason for celebration? So why does this feel like a national disaster? A two-bit psychologist (like me) might say: Jews have become used to anxiety. After hundreds of years of persecution, expulsions, inquisition, pogroms and then the Holocaust, we have little red warning lights in our heads, which come on at the slightest sign of danger. In such a situation, we feel at home. We know what to do. But when the lights stay off and no danger appears on the horizon, we get the feeling that something suspicious is going on.
There is one little consolation in the new situation. While it seems as if the immediate danger of annihilation has disappeared, there is a feeling that we are alone, on our own again. True, other peoples, too, can derive satisfaction from standing alone. Engraved in my memory is a British poster that was hanging on our walls in Palestine in the dark days after the fall of France to the Nazis, when Britain was left quite alone in the war. Under the grim face of Winston Churchill the slogan proudly proclaimed: “Alright then, Alone!” But with us this has almost become a national ritual.
In the last few years, a broad coalition against Iran has come into being. The Iranian bomb has become the heart of an international consensus, led by America. With the consent of all its five permanent members, the UN Security Council has decreed sanctions against Tehran. Now, before our very eyes, this coalition is crumbling. President Bush is stammering. Gone is the excuse for an American military attack on Iran, the dream of the Israeli government and the neocons. Gone is even the pretext for more stringent sanctions.
The first reaction of the Israeli leadership was vigorous and determined: total denial. The American report is simply wrong, all the media proclaimed. It is based on false information. Our own intelligence community is in possession of much better data, which prove that the bomb is well on its way. Really? All the intelligence in the hands of the Mossad is automatically transferred to the CIA. It is part of the mass of data on which the American report is based. It must be remembered that the published part of the report constitutes only 3 percent of the complete document.
So the American intelligence agencies must be deliberately lying. There is no escaping the conclusion that murky political motives must lie behind their unequivocal findings. Perhaps they want to make up for the false reports that President Bush employed to justify his invasion of Iraq. Then they overestimated, now they underestimate. Perhaps they want to take revenge on Bush and believe that the time is ripe, since he has become a lame duck. Or they are adapting themselves to American public opinion, which cannot stomach another war. And, besides, their chiefs are, of course, all anti-Semites. Even if the American intelligence operatives innocently believe that Iran has stopped work on the Bomb, it just shows how naive they are.
They cannot imagine that the Iranians are fooling them. Who knows better than us how easy it is to hide an atomic bomb and deceive the whole world? After all, we have been at it for years. But all this does not change the fact: this report pushes American policy in a new direction and changes the entire international constellation. The war on Iran, which was to be the defining event of 2008, has turned for the time being into a nonevent. The possibility of an independent Israeli military strike against Iran has vanished. Israel cannot wage war without the unreserved backing of the US. We tried once — the Sinai War of 1956 — and then President Dwight D. Eisenhower kicked us. Since then we have taken great care to obtain the blessing of the US before every war.
For the military and intelligence services, the report is an unmitigated disaster for another reason too. The Iranian bomb plays an indispensable part in the army’s annual fight for its massive chunk of the budget cake. For right-wing demagogues, the effect is even more disheartening. Benjamin Netanyahu has built his whole strategy on the Iranian scare, hoping to ride the bomb right into the Prime Minister’s office. Furthermore, when the Iranian issue cools down, the Palestinian issue warms up. That is especially true in Washington DC. President Bush is in trouble, his fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq are still dragging on. Bush’s dream of delivering a lightning stroke against Iran and thus leaving his imprint on history is going up in smoke.
What can he do in order to leave any positive legacy at all? The default alternative is Israeli-Palestinian peace. Perhaps he will now give stronger backing to poor Condoleezza. Perhaps he himself will get more involved. Fact: he is soon going to visit Israel for the first since entering the White House. So what to do? One can instruct Israeli diplomats abroad to redouble their efforts to convince the governments that the situation has not changed, that one must fight against the Iranian bomb, whether it exists or not. But tell that to the Russians and the Chinese! The new situation poses a thorny dilemma for Ehud Olmert. On the way back from Annapolis, he uttered some amazing statements. If the “two states solution collapses,” he declared, “the State of Israel is finished.” Nobody in the peace camp has yet dared to go as far as that.
Does he believe what he says, or is it just a new spin? That is the question that is now dominating the discourse in Israel. In other words: is he just trying to win time, or is he really going to work for a peace settlement? All indications suggest that he is in no position to take any step whatsoever. If he tries to carry out the first phase of the road map and dismantle some settlement outposts, he will face not only the determined opposition of the settlers and their supporters, and the silent (but highly effective) opposition of the military, but also obstruction by his government colleagues. Before the first outpost is dismantled, his coalition will break apart.
Olmert has no other coalition handy. Ehud Barak has been trying again and again to outflank him on the right and cannot be relied upon in a crisis. The Labor Party is a chaotic, spineless and unprincipled body. The shrunken Meretz party has a faction of only five Knesset members, four of whom are competing with each other for the party leadership. The ten members of the Arab factions are outcasts, and no “Zionist” government could be seen to rely openly on their support. And in Olmert’s own faction there are several extreme-right members who would obstruct any peace effort. In such a situation, the natural tendency of a real politician like Olmert is to do nothing, to issue pronouncement left and right (in both senses) and try to gain time.
This week, the government announced plans to build 300 new homes in the odious Har Homa settlement, near Jerusalem. This is bitter news indeed. It certainly does not indicate a turn for the better. On the other hand, I have heard an interesting thesis from one of Olmert’s inner circle. According to this, knowing that he is going to lose power, Olmert may tell himself: if I must fall, why not enter history as somebody who has sacrificed himself on the altar of a lofty principle, instead of just vanishing as a good-for-nothing political hack? I would evaluate this possibility as “unlikely” — but stranger things have happened.—Arab News



What’s in a name?
Zan Jifang


NAMES are very important to the Chinese. When a baby is born, or even before birth, choosing a meaningful name becomes the most important part of the entire family’s ritual. And unlike letters and words of Western names, because of their evolvement from hieroglyphics, Chinese characters give a unique visual image of the person they represent. In China, names are normally two or three characters, and the order of the given name and the family name is a reversal of Western names. According to Chinese tradition, the name of a person starts with his/her surname, which is followed by the given name, like Gong Li. This is because in Chinese culture, emphasis is placed on revering the ancestors, and part of this process means people honor their ancestors by placing the family names ahead of the given names.
In some families, the first of the two characters in a person’s name is shared by all members of a generation and these generational names are worked out long in advance. They can even incorporate characters of epic poems, shared by succeeding generations. Some names of brothers or sisters are frequently related. For example, one child may be named bo, while his (her) brother or sister may be named tao. Combined together, the word botao mean waves or billows.
Most Chinese also have a “little name” or pet name, which their parents and close family members and friends call them by. These names are generally not used by anyone outside this close circle and have sharp regional characteristics according to traditions or conventions of different regions. Destiny starts here To help them decide on a baby’s name, Chinese parents often make use of the dictionary, hoping to find characters or words that have both a beautiful sound and a positive meaning. Given names may also reflect the hopes or blessings from parents or family. For example, the given names of China’s former leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai are very meaningful in Chinese. The character ze means granting beneficence to something or somebody. So zedong means, granting beneficence to the orient. The character en means kindness and lai means to come, so enlai means kindnesses is coming. However, translations of their names into a foreign language will lose these subtle connotations.
One of the most common characters in Chinese given names is wen, meaning culture and knowledge. This character in a name clearly reflects the ultimate value in modern Chinese society: culture and education. Another commonly used character in the given name is zhi, meaning will, intention or emotions, showing the expectation of the parents that the child will grow up with a strong will. In other cases, the character qian, meaning humility, is given in the hope that the child would always remain humble. The character fu, meaning rich, is used in the hope that the child would lead a prosperous life. Besides the meaning of the name, Chinese people also pay attention to whether the name is auspicious, believing a name will affect the child’s destiny.
In recent years, a trend has developed where parents are buying names for their babies from experts specializing in this field. The year, month, day and hour of a baby’s birth are all taken into consideration in the naming process, much like the use of astrology in the West. The experts use the five natural elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth, which Chinese philosophy believes form the core of the universe, to define a person’s destiny. For example, if a baby’s fate is calculated to lack water, they will find a name representing or related with water to compensate. However, Wang Haohua, Director of the China Name Culture Research Society, warned that although most name experts choose names based on traditional Chinese culture and I Ching, or Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese divination manual and book of wisdom, their business needs regulating. He suggests that people still need to focus more on the meanings, form and sound when choosing names.
Reflecting history
Another interesting phenomenon of Chinese names is that they often relate to a period of history, especially in the past six decades. For example, if a man was born in 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded, his name is very possible to be jianguo, which means, founding a country, or jiefang, which means liberation. And if a person was born in 1950, when China sent troops to Korea to help the country fight against the Americans, his name might be yuanchao meaning, helping Korea. The downside of this trend is that many people end up sharing the same given and family name, creating much confusion. In the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), most names would include the characters hong, meaning red and implying revolution, or the character jun, meaning army, showing the love and respect of people to the army at that time.
After the Cultural Revolution, names are usually two characters—one is the surname and the other is the given name, such as Zhang Ping, Li Gang and Wang Li. The character ping, means peace and stability, and is one of the most popular given names during that period. According to Du Peng, professor at the Population Development Studies Center, Renmin University of China, this reflects the hope people had for a simple, stable life after the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution. With time, these historical references have lost popularity, with many parents now favoring names from ancient literary or poetic works, hoping their children will be as elegant and knowledgeable as their names.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)





Hope beyond the failure of boycott?
Dr Moeed Pirzada

NAWAZ Sharif has finally decided to contest the polls. APDM has thrown PML(N) out — as if it really mattered at this point. While the protests in LUMS and vigils in Lahore might continue things move towards the election; the issue of the reinstatement of the judiciary stands where it was. It is time for stock taking. Those of us a little keen on history might remember a fateful day for India. When the English forces were about to storm Sirangapatnam, the capital of Tipu Sultan’s Mysore, his prime minister, the infamous Mir Sadiq, ordered distributing wages to the sepoys. Those who had not been paid in months rushed to collect the silver coins — leaving the fort for an easy entry by the English and their stooges: Marathas and the Nizam. Rest is history.
Some decisions have their dynamics. When General Musharraf (retd) imposed the elections he too set into motion a calculated process of deliberate escalation and de-escalation: mini-martial law; announcement of a date for elections; promise to lift emergency and fake lifting of restrictions from the media were all well thought out gimmicks, in series, to ease the conscience of his constituency: United States of America. Elections — though needed more for Americans than Pakistanis — were also to constitute the ‘meat on the table’, coins for Pakistan’s political sepoys, and anyone with the slightest understanding of the history of this region or of the psychology of power politics in general would have only predicted what is happening.
So I was genuinely surprised when even veteran analysts like, Nasim Zehra, on the eve of the meeting between Ms. Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, allowed herself to believe in what she referred to as the convergence of the movement politics with the electoral politics. Where is it now? No such thing was happening; nor will it happen in near future. Moment to moment changes and developments in the political field might create such illusions of alliance but reality is different. Pakistan has still not reached that point in its evolution. Yes it hurts but it is a sad fact. But accepting the viciousness of things might help in planning better for the rainy days ahead.
Expecting that somehow Pakistani politicians will adopt and support the agendas of civil society suffers from a flawed logic. For there is a serious conflict of interest: politicians need to come into power to save and enhance their support bases through “partisan distribution” of state spoils. Military regimes have already created parallel systems of patronage — that seriously threaten whatever loyalty has been left inside the political machines; if they were political machines ever. But civil society dreams of a system of collective good for the nation state through a process of “transparent distribution” through accountability. Two things are poles apart. I have no doubt that in distant future that might actually be possible. But for that to happen, civil society and professional classes have to fight many more battles. Bastille is nowhere close to falling.

—Khaleej Times